Harbinger Feedback Thread [Merged]

[Axl.8924]

1 hour ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

You had your fill of "godhood", you had it for the last 3 years at least: you have been dominating WvW-PvP and PvE. New players on necro had a hell of a good time, you have been playing with a huge kittening grin on your face for the last 3 years.

On the other hand you have professions like ele or warrior which have been dumped on with tracks full of horseshit, you have like 1-2 players still streaming on either profession and you rarely see them played in high number like necro, you'll never see 50 kitten eles clearing a meta event with world boss....let alone 50 warriors.

It is about time they introduce something requiring some actual brain power to play rather than press F1 and feel like a god, I wish nothing more...nothing more than Anet giving blocks/invulnerabilities to necro with Harbinger, I only wish Anet would go and actually add them to Harbinger.

I can't even imagine how hilarious would be to watch your average joe on necro trying to stay alive while scrambling to get 40s CD+ skill up and running, after years being left with the ability to access another HP bar and huge dmg/condi reduction on a 10s CD.

Blocks? Invulnerabilities? evades?....oh God please yes yes! Please Anet give all of this to necros?.....I can only imagine how enjoyable would be to watch players struggle while unable to access their 50% dmg/condi reduction on a 10s CD

 

What you say is a awful rationalization with that rationalization we could rationalize why mesmers shouldn't exist in pvp and pve because they were gods or that guardians should have firebrand nerfed into infinity and beyond. Its the worse kind of rationalization and it doesn't belong here because this is about necromancers take your problems to the forum area of eles and warriors  for problems.

Just because nec had its set of victories doesn't undo the fact it had its pitfalls and weaknesses and same for every other class. 

 

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, Nimon.7840 said:

guys can you pls stick to actual constructive feedback?
it would be really nice to get a playable and enjoyable elite spec when the expansion launches
 

It's agreed here. 

Frankly, I think the best thing Anet can do now FROM A DESIGN POV is offset blight gain out of shroud with ... something. The damage on the elixirs is certainly not going to do it. 

As a secondary issue, even though it was addressed in the CMC video with Teapot, the 'dual DPS' trait choices are terrible. There is so little value in have a choice to buff either direct or condi DPS in a given trait column.  

[RisenHowl.2419]

the two adept traits that grant +power/condi per stack of blight should just be made baseline. they're unrewarding to pick and considering you're giving up 25% of your healthpool along with all of your shroud health there should be an inherent benefit.

[Sylvan Crow.3297]

I've been a Necro main since I started playing and I regularly switch between Reaper and Scourge because I love what they've done to the class with it. I'm worried now that I won't have the same fun with Harbinger. 

 

1. All our defense through shroud has been removed & we get drastically reduced health because of blight yet we aren't being given near enough active defenses and mobilty to make up for it and yet our best position is up close on enemies. 

 

2. The elixir skills icons. Please, please, please, have these reworked, I am begging you. They look terrible and low effort. 

 

3. The traits are so boring and don't allow any build diversity whatsoever. Like, none. I would suggest reworking the power line since we already have Reaper as a power class (but still allow Harbinger to function as an okay power DPS class for those that would like it). Maybe rework the traits to make it so that pistol skills give might on hit instead of applying conditions or just do extra damage based on distance or blight stacks? Idk. Just something

[Bale.3851]

4 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

You had your fill of "godhood", you had it for the last 3 years at least: you have been dominating WvW-PvP and PvE. New players on necro had a hell of a good time, you have been playing with a huge kittening grin on your face for the last 3 years.

 Uff mate. I come to the conclusion you are either a pretty bad troll or delusional. With shroud being your main problem in pvp and talking about things like "godhood" you sound like a bronze player not being able to realize whats really keeping you back. Dont want to be rude but for real mate your attitude is kinda bad wanting to see other classes in the dirt rather than improving underperforming speccs. Super cringe...

 

BTW nice claims in this one sentence with no evidenve whatsoever. Killing one world boss in an necro event really is proof that the class is op. I mean lol not anybody can do hardcore open world stuff. You must be specially skilled to do so lmao. Also please try to play just one season in platin 2 or 3 and tell me which meta classes you also want to kill though bad feedback and desgign.

 

To move this topic in the right direction again. Maybe add a new button to harbinger to toggle an aura on off for life force. Said aura is traited in grandmaster and modifies your attack. Like loading different bullets.

 

1) adds leach and power dmg and cripple on crit but drains lifeforce

2) adds condi dmg and poison and weakness on crit also drains lf

3) lets you target your teammates and shoot barrier + vigor or regen on crit

[Kronos.2560]

29 minutes ago, Bale.3851 said:

 Uff mate. I come to the conclusion you are either a pretty bad troll or delusional. With shroud being your main problem in pvp and talking about things like "godhood" you sound like a bronze player not being able to realize whats really keeping you back. Dont want to be rude but for real mate your attitude is kinda bad wanting to see other classes in the dirt rather than improving underperforming speccs. Super cringe...

 

BTW nice claims in this one sentence with no evidenve whatsoever. Killing one world boss in an necro event really is proof that the class is op. I mean lol not anybody can do hardcore open world stuff. You must be specially skilled to do so lmao. Also please try to play just one season in platin 2 or 3 and tell me which meta classes you also want to kill though bad feedback and desgign.

 

To move this topic in the right direction again. Maybe add a new button to harbinger to toggle an aura on off for life force. Said aura is traited in grandmaster and modifies your attack. Like loading different bullets.

 

1) adds leach and power dmg and cripple on crit but drains lifeforce

2) adds condi dmg and poison and weakness on crit also drains lf

3) lets you target your teammates and shoot barrier + vigor or regen on crit

That could be great to see instead of GM traits that give melee range torment or cripple we can slow different bullets while In shroud.

 

1 GM gives extra torment on hit

 

Another changes it to higher power multiplier with vuln or cripple and chance for aoe might gain or something instead of applying torment.

 

With last keeping the quickness but applies it to bullets cd of 3 and when hits applies around target and you. (Doesn't overlap of stacking mob)

 

That way the spec stays ranged as it should but you could apply gm traits from where you are. (And any boons just trigger around you and enemy but don't overlap if you stack). I would love this. Currently only quickness is ever used for me as I need to be melee with a ranged weapon for anything else!

[Infusion.7149]

On 12/4/2021 at 4:02 AM, Asum.4960 said:

I've benched the spec quite a few times now to specifically test this, and every time dumping Blight stacks via Voracious Arc was pretty much exactly the same, if not very slightly more, DPS than stacking up Blight for Sceptic Corruption. In any case, it's not a big difference.

 

As I said in a few Threads before though, I agree that it's bad design to have two damage increasing mechanics on the spec that directly contradict each other, at least with the Blight removal one being the one that's baseline (if anything, increased damage per Blight should be baseline, and dumping Blight via skills an optional Trait mechanic to spec into). 

 

Imo these two should be distinct playstyles you can choose between (something I tried to accomplish here, among other things), rather than baseline functionality offering no choice or customisation.

(Because people have trouble getting back on topic , here's my attempt to bring it back...)

What if you could drop blight stacks while CC-ed? That would make it worth doing in competitive modes since harbinger shroud stops you from using your utilities in its current iteration. Voracious Arc happens to be split for 18s cooldown in competitive modes already after all ; Vital Draw is on 25 cooldown. In fact maybe the harbinger shroud ought to function as firebrand tomes : i.e. you keep all utilities usable because it does not affect your health anymore. The merits of that happening should be thoroughly discussed: why is harbinger shroud mutually exclusive with utility skills whereas on scourge you can use all of them? If not all utilities, how about elixirs in shroud?

I watched a harbinger go at it with a core power thief (sword mainhand) for about half hour last night in WvW and the harbinger downed once or twice in total. It was sustaining with blood magic , flesh wurm, and possibly torment rune. Doom Approaches pulses weakness in melee AoE but I'm unclear on whether that was used.  So in the hand of an experienced player, with more playtime I don't think it is as unplayable as people make it out to be in competitive modes, although in largescale WvW power will always be better than conditions obviously.

As stated in a prior page I think Devouring Cut should have its range restored to 900. It's functionally different to core necro shroud since you can use it without a target, granting you mobility out of combat. "High risk, high reward" should mean more mobility and more realistic damage (whether in terms of damage uptime since shroud is ranged and faster attacking or otherwise) rather than passive sustain. Positioning should be more important than tanking damage on harbinger since it doesn't use the life force as damage dampening. I think people are too fixated on the DPS right now and the loss of the passive resustain to look at the bigger picture.

As in your post on where to take harbinger, you can break the "vision" down into aggressive condi DPS with max damage at melee range. The CC is currently provides is hard CC which means it is more potent and faster than fear which is countered by resistance. The current condi quickness iteration is ~27K DPS and last patch it was ~33K. Of course your point on Dhuumfire being overnerfed probably applies as well to some extent.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

As a secondary issue, even though it was addressed in the CMC video with Teapot, the 'dual DPS' trait choices are terrible. There is so little value in have a choice to buff either direct or condi DPS in a given trait column.  

Out of curiosity, do you have a title or link to this video?  I haven't seen it and think it could be an interesting watch.

[Asum.4960]

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

What if you could drop blight stacks while CC-ed? That would make it worth doing in competitive modes since harbinger shroud stops you from using your utilities in its current iteration. Voracious Arc happens to be split for 18s cooldown in competitive modes already after all ; Vital Draw is on 25 cooldown. In fact maybe the harbinger shroud ought to function as firebrand tomes : i.e. you keep all utilities usable because it does not affect your health anymore. The merits of that happening should be thoroughly discussed: why is harbinger shroud mutually exclusive with utility skills whereas on scourge you can use all of them? If not all utilities, how about elixirs in shroud?

As for Blight loss when CC'ed, I personally don't like the idea of passively rewarding players for bad play (see, getting CC'ed - if that's what you meant), as well generally not wanting to see Blight stripping as a forced baseline mechanic with how Harbinger is currently designed, having very prominent Traits around stacking Blight, as well as Elixir thresholds. 

Anet really just needs to think about what they want Blight to be at it's core (and really if they even want to keep it as mechanic altogether on top of already losing a damage soaking Shroud). Where Harbinger in Beta 4 especially went wrong for me is just slapping all these confused and confusing extra mechanics onto everything.

Is Blight a pure punishment? Do you want to stack it for damage modifiers (and if so, why nerf them to be so weak that they are barely worth it, and then why do they make up 20% of Traits? Why is it not baseline?)? Do you want to use movement skills to remove Blight, and what to do with those skills if you do not but still want to kite with them? Do you want to avoid gaining Blight? Do you want to stack Blight to benefit from Blight thresholds on Elixirs? Do you want to throw these Elixir's at enemies at certain Blight thresholds for minor extra effects, but then not gain and maintain Blight to meet those thresholds further? Do you want to throw the Elixirs at your own feet to gain Blight, at which point, why are they throwable, but then not gain those extra effects upon enemies? Do you want to throw them on allies to gain them boons via Traits, invalidating all the thresholds and self Blight gain? etc. ..by Grenth, what are those designers smoking.

 

If they want two or three separate playstyles of Blight avoiding/stripping or stacking (be it for modifiers and or thresholds), they do need to be a choice or mutually exclusive different playstyles entirely, presented by the Traits lines - not baked in mechanics, especially in terms of Blight removal, which then disincentivizes or punishes any optional Blight positive options. 

Don't just slap on all the concept ideas that were on the whiteboard for the spec at once, even when they directly contradict each other.

 

I do agree on Utility access though. I mean, it's very clear to me that they slapped Harbinger together fairly quickly without much thought or design - including just the basic Shroud code, but it's clearly closer to something like Photon Forge than Necro Shroud, in that it allows for healing and crucially, doesn't protect your health, so it kind of also needs to act like it in order to not be a death sentence. 

 

With less than 3 months until launch, it's fairly concerning that the Spec seemingly never made it out of the early concepting stage, and then just got animations put together/reused coupled with old code base for what they had at the time.

 

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I watched a harbinger go at it with a core power thief (sword mainhand) for about half hour last night in WvW and the harbinger downed once or twice in total. It was sustaining with blood magic , flesh wurm, and possibly torment rune. Doom Approaches pulses weakness in melee AoE but I'm unclear on whether that was used.  So in the hand of an experienced player, with more playtime I don't think it is as unplayable as people make it out to be in competitive modes, although in largescale WvW power will always be better than conditions obviously.

Can't comment too much on that since I wasn't there to see it, but all I've seen of Harbinger doing well so far was really good players farming obviously incredibly lower skilled players in comparison, which they could do on really just about anything. 

I don't see any way of how a Harbinger could beat a remotely evenly skilled Thief, or anything else really. It just doesn't have the tools to do so. 

The only way I can see that as of now is players who have spent tons of time over the beta mastering Harbinger vs. players who as of now still have no idea of how to counter it, what their burst combos are, recognizing tells, setups, have their cooldowns in their heads etc. Same reason why sometimes you can have great success with objectively worse but whacky builds, because other players simply have no idea what to expect or how to play around it. 

As soon as that period of time is over though, all you have is that objectively worse build, or in this case, spec.

 

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

As stated in a prior page I think Devouring Cut should have its range restored to 900. It's functionally different to core necro shroud since you can use it without a target, granting you mobility out of combat. "High risk, high reward" should mean more mobility and more realistic damage (whether in terms of damage uptime since shroud is ranged and faster attacking or otherwise) rather than passive sustain. Positioning should be more important than tanking damage on harbinger since it doesn't use the life force as damage dampening. I think people are too fixated on the DPS right now and the loss of the passive resustain to look at the bigger picture.

If they unnerf just one of the mobility skills, I truly hope it will be Voracious Arc, not Devouring Cut, since that would give Harbinger the ability back to perform certain neat skips that plenty other classes have access to since years with proper air gaining leaps and such. That said, I'd like to see both of them restored ofc, those two skills were one of the very, very few things Harbinger had going for it mechanically in Beta 1. Although even if both are returned to 900 range, that's far from enough to save the spec in my eyes with all the other issues it got. But at least it would be something. 

To your point of positioning, that's already the vast majority of Necromancer play in PvP. Even with Shroud as defense. If you are not perfectly positioned and engage or disengage at the exact right time as Necro, you are dead without the focus breaks and get out of jail for free cards that other professions have. 

All Harbinger does is make that even worse. Hell, this thing is so helpless and squishy, I can see it dying even by being in the right position - unless you just stay >1500 range away from the fight and do nothing. Otherwise, any Ranger tab targeting you randomly, Rev jumping you, etc. etc. means sure death.

 

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

As in your post on where to take harbinger, you can break the "vision" down into aggressive condi DPS with max damage at melee range. The CC is currently provides is hard CC which means it is more potent and faster than fear which is countered by resistance. The current condi quickness iteration is ~27K DPS and last patch it was ~33K. Of course your point on Dhuumfire being overnerfed probably applies as well to some extent.

 

 

The condi DPS with max damage at melee range is where Harbinger is at currently. 

As for why I lament Harbinger not having any Fear inbuild is not because I think it's a good form of CC, but because it's always been there in Necro's specialisation mechanic for a reason - Necromancer has multiple Traits that interact with Fear exclusively and make for interesting build choices. Harbinger is already desperately lacking core Trait interactions and synergies, idk why the Devs would leave out such an obvious one. 

Just Staff 5 and Spectral Ring at 32-40s CD's don't justify the existence of those Traits for Harbinger, which are clearly designed and balanced around relatively frequent Fear usage, if anything in combination with those two. 

 

Plus, Scourge with a 900 range 2 second Knockdown on Torch as well as 1s base Fear, and especially Reaper, imo actually have far superior CC in their kit than the 1s Stun on Pistol, as well as the suicide melee 0.5s Daze and finnicky, slow and highly telegraphed 3s float - especially with Resistance being a fairly limited and generally very low duration Boon.

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Infusion.7149]

@Asum.4960
What I meant with dropping blight stacks while CC-ed : right now if you drop blight stacks it can put you out of harbinger shroud due to how shroud works on harbinger. If you can use your blight removal skills in shroud while CC-ed (i.e. they stunbreak for example) then it would make it less susceptible to being CC-ed in shroud as the play against harbingers. I didn't mean passively dropping blight , as at least in PVE you want blight for the damage mod unless you are using devouring cut/Voracious Arc for the torment stack.

Of course this would be less of a suggestion/concern if you could use utilities while in shroud.

The reason why I think devouring cut having greater mobility is advantageous is due to the cooldown and CC on Voracious Arc. You would want to save Voracious Arc.

Another thing to note is while scourge torch does knockdown it is only one target. Everything on harbinger shroud is oriented toward AoE with relatively fast activation.  The power damage coefficients on pistol were upped slightly this time around in PvE so maybe pistol will be made more attractive in the future.

There definitely is a lack of cohesive direction to blight right now ; elixirs being projectile also is another issue. If you don't use the blight removal purely to drop out of shroud to use heal/utilities then the blight removal actually is counterproductive. Vile Vials is more or less a dead trait right now if 27K cDPS is the end result on condi quickness harbinger so perhaps the blight interaction ought to be modified on that trait. Due to the projectile nature of harbinger elixirs I don't see it working in competitive modes.

You'll note the duel I was watching was in WVW not in PVP, where toughness is more or less on rabid amulet for condition builds ; paladin/demolisher amulet for power builds. There's also no torment rune in PVP.
 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Kwaku.4051]

There are a lot of people complaining about the power traits. I agree that they are boring/the same as the condi traits and should be changed, but I would like to not have power Harbinger scrapped completly for the following reasons:

• Necro can already play condi with core, reaper and scourge, but only has one power build.
• The existing Necro condi builds (apart from cReaper) already are ranged builds with scepter and the same traits/utilities while the existing power build is melee (pHarbinger would still need some interersting traits to further diferentiat itself from pReaper though)
• Harbinger is supposed to be high risk high reward, but having your damage be delayed by being cDps is at odds with the supposed hit and run style

 

[Glott.7239]

Okay i try to keep this a bit shorter this time:

 

The GM Traits

these have not been change from the 1st Beta so i still stand by it and say that they are mostly boring and offer no gameplay variance to one another. Passive pulsing Auras are about as basic as it gets.

 

The Trait Layout

Currently you feel a bit pinned down in you choices. While i see the benefits of a clear theme for a line it feels this went a little to far on harbinger, to the point where its almost like you only have 3 trait to pick from, that than determine what you HAVE to pick for the rest of you build. Power = Take all top traits, Condi = Take all Botton traits, Support = Take all Mid traids. there is little to no room for mixing and matching.

 

The "Power Playstyle"

Speaking of the traitlines, the whole power line still feels out of place, so does the newly addes stikedmg on elixiers. I'd much rather see these beening replaced with something more synergetic to the other 2 traitlines.

 

Elixiers

The Elixierst feel much better than in beta 1 but they are still a bit lackluster. The blight threshold is intressting but doesn't feel like it is beeing utilised to it's full potential as every elixier has the same threshold with a cockiecutter effect that isn't very potent since most conditions they aplly are only relevant in PvP where they will be removed very quickly anyway.

As i sad the powerdmg feels tagged on and out of place, i'd much rather see it increase the boon duration. Also still getting the boons when you throw the elixier away from you might be nice but doesn't feel quite right thematically.

 

Stat Typs

It found it hard to evaluate some aspects of this spec without knowing the new stat typs we might get with EoD. Specialy the Boon support variant struggels with reaching Condi duration caps while maintaining sufficient boon duration. If EoD brings letzt say a "Diviner" equivalent for Condi. With for example Condi DMG & Concentration major, Expertise & Vitality/Precision minor. Most off this will effect a lot of how this spec will play out.

 

The Build Craft

The most exciting part about elite specs for me is when they manage to shine a light on old and under used stuff and interact with the core profesion in new and intresting ways. With harbinger though i find myself having to play the exact same traits with Curses and Soulreaping that i use on Scourge for over 4 year now and i have noticed that this is a problem on many of the other now specs aswell. Bladesworn for example is still stuck on Strength and Discipline, like every other Power Warrior build for PvE. However i feel like this is not a problem caused by the new specs but by the power creep in game over all these years. Some core lines desperately need an overhaul and i'm afrait Curses is one of the bigges offenders for Necro some traits are just to strong, to the point where they can carry a build almost on there own (looking at you Lingering Curse).

 

There we go. Looks like i failed with keeping it short but what do you do.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Glott.7239

[Lily.1935]

So the Grandmaster traits are boring. And there's a good reason why everyone thinks so. Its because we've seen this type of trait on necromancer before. Shrouded removal works like that now, awaken the pain used to work like that, reaper's onslaught works like that, and now we have 3 more traits with Harbinger that also pulse some effect every 3 seconds.

 

No one would honestly mind if one of them did this, but to have all 3 of them do that and not in an interesting way its just boring.

[Nimon.7840]

16 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Out of curiosity, do you have a title or link to this video?  I haven't seen it and think it could be an interesting watch.

I think it's this one:

 

[James.3982]

Class I played most during the beta - only in WvW and PvP.
1) Blight and Potions.
Adding the throw element and blight bonuses on potions was a game changer. Potions went from feeling dull to active skills.
Blight is really hard to keep track of from a white number/small grey icon on boon bar. IMO I'd love there to be a green outline on a utility skill as the blight lvl needed for bonus effect is active (much like the current combo field indicator on skills, but green.)
Also just change the icon/font/colors - make it more visible.

2) Boon support / DPS hybrid in WvW.
Harbinger has potential to be strong boon support, but in WvW it does not offer enough imo.
Could you add flat out grp healing on the heal skill (when blight lvl is met) or maybe a AoE stunbreak on elite skill, to save those boonstripped and trapped allies with stun break/all boons.

If released like this, I'm afraid Scourge will just outperform Harbinger hard in WvW ^^

[Allium Cepa.6927]

Just a thought that came up for damage to survivability ratios.

Have the expected damage increase be the inverse of the survivability lost. 
For example, if harbinger is losing its survivability to 2/3 what it was (It's probably more, survivability is not just max hp), then it should be gaining 3/2 in damage. Of course, this taken to extremes gives you some wack stuff like if we drop survivability to 1/4 we would be getting 4 times damage in return. But an inverse ratio would be a good guide for turning necro into a glass cannon.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Allium Cepa.6927

[xfayrox.8146]

Hi, i am a necromancer main more or less since 2012. Tested harbinger in PvP/WvW/open world PvE(metas & some solo stuff)/raids/strikes/golem in beta 1 and in beta 4 same basically, just didn't have time to test it in WvW this time due to work schedule and such. So what are my thoughts?

I liked:

• + elixir changes - i like they are now throwable and have a little bit extra "umpf" ontop
• + the bursty condi nature of harbinger (aka skills have rather low cooldown and low duration conditions, but more stacks per skill)
• I didnt like:
• - 20% DPS nerf compared to beta 1 on class cannon with (up to) -37,5%HP debuff. It now deals abit less DPS than Reaper (that has shroud) and Scourge (that has barriers)
• - Removal of all sustain. The life force to HP mechanic was kind of interesting, but also too powerful and at the same time too punishing as well. For sustain id do x amount of healing per blight stack on you. Why would it be better? It would go better with the high risk - high reward theme. To counterbalance the added sustain i would make blight +25% damage and -50% HP like it was in beta 1, it would give abit of the cannon side back to harbinger as well. The current +12,5% max to DPS, dosn't feel rewarding enough.
• - 33% mobility nerf on class cannon. I simply don't see the reasoning behind it. Now its kinda as mobile as Reaper. I would at least change it so if you use it above their blight thresholds, range would be 900, like in beta 1. Again giving you more reward for your risk.
• - Boon support build is too weak. For noticeable amount of DPS decrease, you can only keep up quickness. Other elite specs can do better job with boons, so it wouldn't fit to current meta. To fix it i would change the grandmaster trait so that instead of pulsing quickness there would be double base duration on elixirs.
• - Traits aren't good at all. The +(all)DPS for -HP per blight stack should be a base thing, not a trait, like tens of people before me have already stated. Also like others have said, i dont like the pulsing grandmaster traits at all, they are boring.
• - Pistol DPS seems kinda udertuned to me.

 

All in all i think i would enjoy playing it if the DPS and sustain would be somewhere inbetween beta 1 and 4, mobility would be reverted back to beta 1 and the traits would get replaced with something more interesting, especially the pulsing ones.

•  

[Asum.4960]

12 hours ago, Allium Cepa.6927 said:

Just a thought that came up for damage to survivability ratios.

Have the expected damage increase be the inverse of the survivability lost. 
For example, if harbinger is losing its survivability to 2/3 what it was (It's probably more, survivability is not just max hp), then it should be gaining 3/2 in damage. Of course, this taken to extremes gives you some wack stuff like if we drop survivability to 1/4 we would be getting 4 times damage in return. But an inverse ratio would be a good guide for turning necro into a glass cannon.

Harbinger has 19212 base HP + 3600 from Alchemic Vigor: 22812 - 37.5% Blighted = 14257 HP

Harbinger gets one 0.5 sec Evade as extra defeneses. It benefits at -37.5% efficiency from extra Vitality due to Blight.

Reaper has 19212 base HP + 15908 Shroud (with SR) + 50% innate damage reduction in Shroud = 23862 effective Shroud HP = 43074 effective HP

Reaper gets baseline Stab on Shroud, another 6s 20% damage reduction in Shroud, more CC and access to extra Core interactions (such as LF gain via Fear of Death in Shroud), but Shroud rapidly decays as Defense when used (taking about 1200 effective HP damage per second just for being in Shroud). It benefits at ~+100% (69% at 150%) efficiency from extra Vitality due to damage absorbing Shroud.

 

Overall I'd say Harbinger has maybe 1/3 of the defenses of Reaper. 

Condi Reaper does 37700 DPS, Power Reaper 34300 DPS.

Inversely to that, Harbinger would then need to do ~104000 DPS on Power and ~115000 DPS on Condi.

 

Which shows you fairly quickly why that won't work, especially considering that offense is more valuable in GW2 than defense (up to a point, no one enjoys getting effectively or literally oneshot, which is yet another problem of Harbinger - especially in PvP where even Reaper already is a glass cannon due to lacking scaling, active defenses). 

Even if we value offense more than twice as highly as defense, you can't really give Harbinger enough damage to make it worthwhile without reaching ridiculous, unhealthy numbers. 

The spec just desperately needs more defensive tools and robust design (see Ele, Guard, Ranger, Mesmer etc.) before one can even think about tuning it correctly damage wise, as right now it would either have to oneshot players, or be useless.

 

On 12/5/2021 at 10:27 PM, Infusion.7149 said:

The reason why I think devouring cut having greater mobility is advantageous is due to the cooldown and CC on Voracious Arc. You would want to save Voracious Arc.

Which is why I'd rather get rid of the Daze on Voracious Arc and move that CC over the Devouring Cut in form of Fear. 

That gives Harbinger a lot more core Trait interactions and build Craft, uncouples Voracious Arc from having to use your only minor defense in form of an evade for CC/Interrupts, and grants Harbinger special Utility back in performing certain terrain skips by allowing it to be 900 Range again - while in turn restoring 900 Range to Devouring Cut would just be slightly extra Dash range, with zero other benefits. 

CD's can be adjusted, there isn't really a reason for Voracious Arc to be at 18s in PvP now, let alone if they'd remove the 0.5s Daze.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Matt H.6142]

Yes, Obviously the necro should be throwing nasty things in vials.  That felt good, and the blight threshold does make elixirs interesting.  Are they impactful?  Not really.  Blind, Cripple, Weakness are readily available from Core necro.

The shroud change does make Unholy Sanctuary, and to a lesser extent, Corrupted Talent (gain life force when entering shroud), useless.

Vial cooldown should not compete with blight boosts in adept tier.  Switch with grant boons to allies in the area for more opportunity cost, and enhance blight generation for damage boosts.

[jpsssss.7530]

1) While I like the direction you took with blight management, the removal of the passive healing and just making it a shroud bar with no overhealth like death/reaper shrouds is kinda bad. Necro still does not quite have the mobility or defensive skills to make up for that lost effective health AND blight stacks. (echo chamber intensifies i know, sorry).

 

2) I really like the new elixirs. They feel fun to use and can be used to clear or add blight. Thank you for listening ❤️

3) traits seem a little bland across the board. Maybe drop the aura's for a skill morph (like scepter trait) or 2 in shroud to maybe define them better than a melee range aura that will rarely be useful outside of PvE?

Overall a positive change from Beta 1, but still needs work in the trade off for defenses because losing an effective 12k-ish (about what shroud would give after cost ticks?) health before blight while having the same mediocre defensive skills doesn't really work out well.

Edited December 7, 2021 by jpsssss.7530
Added closing statement

[Bralock.2978]

I preferred the Harbinger during the first beta 1 rather than the recent changes.  While the suppose the sustain from the healing was a bit strong, I liked the mechanic regardless.  I didn't really find I was running out of life force, and often don't have that issue with a necromancer in general anyway.  I found I had no sustain and kept dieing until I changed my traits around and went full condi with the passive heals from condition damage.  So while this kind of worked, I feel it's almost necessary to stay up.

 

The changes with the elixirs was interesting, and gave something more than just a buff.  I felt it was interesting to try and keep the game of blight/no blight up for damage.

 

My main recommendation would be to add some kind of sustain back, even if not to the full power of beta 1.  Perhaps if it could be tied into the Blight somehow.  Maybe a low passive heal when we did not have blight or low stacks of blight?  If not a passive heal, maybe a bonus to health gained when we have no blight.  That way it would work as the risk/reward idea the class was based around.  When you want to risk DPS go for blight or if you need to hang back and get some health back lose those blight stacks.

[Seuchenherbst.2746]

I'm a necro main since launch, and here are some of my thoughts on the Harbinger:

 

The whole spec seems poorly fleshed out and clearly hasn't left the early design phase, which, as others have pointed out, is very concerning with the launch only a few months away. There are myriads of points of criticism one could raise with this spec, and most of them have been brought up in this thread already, but since launch day is approaching very fast, I highly doubt there will be enough time to implement the changes necessary to make Harbinger an enjoyable (not even talking about competitive yet) experience.

 

So the designer(s?) have to ask themselves: "do we keep following this design path into nowhere?" or do they want to pull the emergency break so they at least have something presentable to show at launch?

In the latter case, just restore the damage absorbing shroud on Harbinger for the time being, since clearly the developers have no idea how to otherwise increase the survivability of HB.

 

I was also pretty surprised that whoever got to design the new necro spec didn't simply go for glyphs. It would have been the most intuitive utilities to implement on necro, with the glyphs changing their effects in shroud, and the "new thing" on HB being to access to said utilities in shroud. It appears to people who designed the new spec never actually played necro themselves and as such lack the intuition to create a viable necro spec.

 

To sum up, if you plan on changing anything at all with this spec, either go back to the drawing board (unlikely and unfeasable so close to launch) or fix at least the following:

 

- restore damage absorbing shroud (at least until a better solution is found, which is unlikely)

- fix the exiliers (not only the icons, but also the boring and unimagitive effects)

- do a major overhaul of all the traits, since they clearly never left the early drawing-board stage

- restore the mobility of the spec, since this was one of the only positive aspects about it

 

Good luck to the devs, there's still alot of work to do on this spec.

[GalYurrr.5481]

I don't think ripping out the HP regen/life force drain mechanic completely was the right choice.  It took away some of what made HB feel unique in comparison to the other specs.  Couldn't you have just halved the healing/LF drain and tried that out first if the 1st iteration was too much?

[Inexplicable.4165]

I don't know if anyone will read it but here are my thoughts on Harbinger after playing it for a few days:

1) Shroud

 

It's good that life force doesn't drain when you're not in shroud. That felt very clunky and it actually made a huge difference not having to worry about it. However, this comes with its own set of problems. Of course, this means Harbinger has basically no sustain which is terrible in competitive modes but I think what's more important is that the price you pay for higher damage is way too steep. You lose a second health bar and instead you get Blight which by default hasn't got any benefits (it can make Elixirs better now but that's not a big enough pay-off on its own). If you want any other benefits, you'll need to use your traits for it. I think that's simply a bad design. My solution would be to add an F2 for Harbinger. The F2 would either heal you depending on how much health force you use (e.g. 50+ - small amount, 75+ - medium amount, 100% - large amount) or grant you barrier. This is much better than passive life regeneration. Alternatively, what I'd suggest is an F2 that blocks the next few attacks depending on how much life force you spend ( e.g. 50+ - one block, 75+ - two blocks, 100% - three blocks). I think this would really make Harbinger feel distinct There could be another solutions - some other idea I've got is making life force drain faster in Harbinger shroud but also making it so that you get healed for a small amount every few seconds. The last idea I've got is making one ability in shroud heal/grant barrier/block when you use it. What is really important, however, is that we get SOMETHING in return. Without it, I don't see why I'd ever want to use Harbinger in PvP.

 

2) Elixirs

They're far better than they were at the beginning but some of them are still not good enough. I'd make them apply more condis in general because at the moment it makes far more sense to use our old utilities. What I'd also say is that the elite skill should have a more impactful animation. It doesn't need to be extremely flashy but at the moment it looks really boring. 

 

3) Fear

Not many people have spoken about this but I still think it's a problem. We lose access to fear in shroud and whilst float is arguably better in some ways, it's not affected by our fear traits. The obvious solution would be to make all our fear traits affect float. Necros don't have access to float anywhere else so it wouldn't break anything. It'd also add more options for our condi build because at the moment I feel like I have hardly any choice when it comes to traits. I think this change would really make a huge difference for me.

 

 

4) General feelings

 

Other than what I've mentioned, I think Harbinger is mostly fine. I still feel that the power traits should go as Harbinger is clearly more condi-oriented but the devs seem very reluctant to do it. The traits could definitely be improved but I think that some elite specs like Catalyst need FAR more work so I'm not sure how realistic it is. The only change that I think is absolutely imperative is the change to shroud I mentioned earlier.

[Flomingo.6758]

(ok sorry guys English is not my main language.)
 

Anet plz look back at your artwork for the Harbinger.

This spec looks so cool. But its not fun to play.

if you want it to be a glasscanon give us decent damage/mobility vs sacrifice of sustain.

Blight is not fun... high risk no rewards.

 

I think this spec should focus more around the elixers.

 

When i saw the picture i was so hyped to play the Plaguedocter class, so much potential.

We throw our pots, spread condies around . We inhale the toxic smoke of the elixers and get debuffs.

But atleast we are infecting the whole area. And we hope that we are the last man standing.